LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
According to a meme your toxic uncle shared, tough times breed tough men such as shopper Andrew Huston who has turned to a life of mild crime in order to get by.
Specifically, Huston has become one of the many supermarket shoppers who attempt to make Coles and Woolies pay for replacing checkout staff with robots by stealthing a few unexpected items into the bagging area.
While it may seem harmless to everyone who is not a supermarket shareholder, Huston is playing with fire and history as he commits the sort of crime that got his ancestors sent to Australia in the first place.
Alongside being home to the oldest continuing culture on earth, modern day Australia was first colonised by British criminals, a fact the Brits love pointing out whenever they suspect the convict descendents now soaking up sun in idyllic seaside towns got the better end of the deal.
Drew is one of the 75% of Australians who claim to have convict heritage as well as being one of the 20% of Australians who actually has convict blood, a fact he learnt during a dark time when his mum nearly lost her battle with Ancestry.com.
And just like his ancestors who saw Botany Bay appear on the horizon after stealing some potatoes, Huston could be forced to shop at another supermarket if he gets caught scanning steak as potatoes.
“If you get caught you just get banned for a year,” stated Huston, the descendent of someone who received a sentence five times bigger in an unfamiliar penal colony with next to no food.
“I’ve already got a year’s worth of savings so if I do get caught it will be worth it to just go down the road to the other supermarket where I can hopefully start the cycle all over again.”
MORE TO COME.
